I stole this from Andrew Bolt, who nicked it from somewhere else:

When I started working in the arts there was the usual joke that looking out over the classical music audience was like staring into a sea of grey. They would all die out, we were told, and there would be no one to replace them. Well it turned out that there was someone to replace them, the next generation. The truth is that people come to different art forms at different stages of their lives. This does not invalidate the art form or make it any less adventurous or relevant. In fact the older audience is often far more open to new ideas and forms than their younger counterparts who often use live performance, quite legitimately, as a social backdrop to the far more pressing concerns of talking to friends, dancing, and having a few drinks…

This focus has sent organisations into often surreal twists and turns trying to prove their youthful credentials. More than any other area in the arts, “audience development” is often confused, regularly tokenistic and at times downright embarrassing. Unsure about the merits of supporting art for arts sake, funding agencies and foundations focus their attention on developing younger audiences. Institutions in turn work around the clock to find ways to show how their ballet, orchestra or theatre company is reaching out to young people. They hang on a few nights where “young people” experience the art form and then hang around, drink beer perhaps with a DJ playing in the foyer. Like watching your parents getting funky at a wedding, these nights send a shiver down the spine.

I really grabbed it for this one line

"The truth is that people come to different art forms at different stages of their lives."

How trued that is, and it's not just art. One thing I noticed about the Spring Cycle is that it appears to be completely lacking the 18-30 age group. It's as if that group was carted off to another planet on Sunday morning - or they just failed to get out of planet Bed. There were quite a few kids of 10 and under, but the adults all seemed to start at 31 and just get older from there. I guess I was pretty typical.

What self-respecting teenager is going to get out of bed on Sunday morning to ride somewhere? There's at least 3 hours of Video Hits to watch, and then a whole day of loafing around ahead.

Spring cycle

Tomorrow is Spring Cycle day, which involves lots of people riding from North Sydney to Homebush. There's a variety of distances that you can do, and I'm taking the 50km option. By the time I ride to the start, then do the ride, then ride home, it will probably be an 80-90km day. Might take about 4 hours to knock that off. The hardest thing is dealing with all the bicycle traffic jams. I did it two years ago, and there were spots where you'd have a blob of 300 cyclists trying to get through a gap two feet wide. Chaos.

I am going to do my best to get up early and be at the start around take-off time. That's the only way to avoid the hordes of slow moving once a month cyclists. I have a can of flat Coke in the fridge for breakfast. What a way to start the morning.

Pane e Vino revisited

We tried Pane e Vino again recently. The last meal there was not so flash - the night was great, but the service was reminiscent of Soviet Russian indifference at its worst. This time, the owner was there, and taking a personal interest in what went on. The improvement in service was out of this world.

I can only remember three main courses that we had, but they included a great rib eye steak (which I just inhaled - it was that good), a lovely rack of lamb and a chicken pasta. All were excellent. The pasta was particularly surprising because many places give you a bowl heaped with pasta and then artfully sprinkle 3 slivers of chicken on top. This dish was about 50% chicken, 50% pasta. And the chicken actually tasted really good - it wasn't your usual watery 10 week old chicken that's been stuffed full of food and water and tastes like cardboard paste.

Dessert was good, as we actually got some this time around. We all had chocolate puddings, which were the last ones in the kitchen. They were top notch.

I was really happy with it. The bill came to a bit under $40 each (we did BYO) and I think that was great value, considering we also shared two entrees. One of those was some sort of fried squid with a dipping sauce, and that was very good too.

Best of all, they had the stupid TV above the door turned off. There is nothing so distracting as having a 42 inch plasma screen above your head playing some stupid fashion channel or whatever. I don't mind going to a pub and watching sport on a big TV, but eating in a good restaurant is different.

This is why you should always go to a place twice. The first visit might be an off night.

We'll be back.

The worst sashimi

I am a fan of Japanese food for lunch, and I'm doing well at the moment because the new office is smack in the middle of the largest concentration of Japanese and Korean restaurants in the CBD. None of them are particularly good - I think they are the sort that cater to Japanese backpackers rather than squillionaire businesspeople, but at least I can walk in any direction from the office and find raw fish within 100 yards.

Although I've only been in this office for a short time, I've already found a favourite place to eat. It does a good lunch box for $15 and they certainly don't skimp on the food. It's not the best lunchbox that I've ever had, but it generally passes the test.

Except for the other day. One corner of the lunchbox is the sashimi section, and they usually include just salmon for sashimi. I prefer a mix of a couple of fish, but I'm not complaining at that price. But I should have complained the other day - the sashimi was just awful. I don't know what cut of the salmon they were using, but it must have been the cut that is usually used to make shoe soles or car tyres. It was tough, sinewy and just terrible. For the first time in my life, I actually failed to finish my portion of sashimi. If I owned a cat, I wouldn't have stooped to taking it home and inflicting it on an innocent cat. The only thing I could think of doing with it was taking it home and then sneaking down to the house of the neighbour that dumps shopping trolleys on our doorstep and then glueing it to the inside of their letter box. They'd be wondering for weeks why the letter box stunk of terrible fish.

But even I am not that much of a bastard.

Quick Saturday ride

In the spirit of using the bike to save the planet, I drove the 4WD to the mechanic this morning for a 10,000km once over. I put the bike in the back and rode home - the long way. I could have caught a bus home, but knowing my luck, there would only be two of us on the bus. Me and the grossly fat person sitting next to me. Am I wearing the wrong deoderant?

This photo shows one of the bike routes through the eastern part of Drummoyne. The council has gotten all tricky in their efforts to calm traffic and eliminate rat runs by blocking this road off halfway along its length. Bikes can still get through though by going up the wheelchair ramp that I have marked with the red arrow, and then ducking across the island and rejoining the disjointed road on the other side.



There's just one problem, as usual. During the week, this street is in demand for car parking, and there is inevitably a car parked right in front of the wheelchair ramp. If I was on a mountain bike, I wouldn't be bothered at the prospect of having to jump the kerb and cross the woodchip strewn island (or even jumping over the parked car), but I'm on a road bike with skinny little whimpy road tyres. Going at woodchips is a good way to spend the next 10 minutes on the side of the road fixing a puncture.

Council, as usual, have not thought through this properly.



I thought these two little dogs were going to have a go at me. Why is it that it's always the small yappy dogs that are the most threat? They're bouncy enough to leap six feet off the ground and bite your throat out.



Another silly numberplate. This suburb is full of them. Maybe an entrepreneur is going door to door and selling them. This one says REZRXT, or 'resurrect'. As you might expect, there was a crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror. We're in a spot of trouble when even the God-botherers start getting stupid personalised plates. Why couldn't they just get one of those "fish" stickers?



This photo shows a lovely, green treeline, with an unbelievably ugly building poking out of it. That building is of course a Telstra exchange, and it is also smothered in head-nuking mobile phone towers. Why is it that Telstra builds such hideous edifices? I sometimes think that they have taken on either Saddam Hussein or Kim Il Jong as a consulting architect. You never see these types of buildings except on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Makes me think we are living in Albania.



Nice day to go out on the water in a boat. I cycle through this boat-ramp carpark quite often, and it is usually empty. Not today. I had to play dodgems with the boat trailers, which were everywhere. Not that I saw any boats actually moving on the water. I suppose they launch here and bugger off somewhere else to do the fishing etc.



A man with a van - a very busted up and rusted out old van. The rego sticker said 2004, so it has been sitting somewhere for several years collecting spiders, dust and rust. The owner stuck his head over the fence as I took this photo and asked me if I wanted to buy it! I had to zip it and stop myself from saying that I was going to do my level best to have the council tow it first thing on Monday morning.

Life - episode 3

I've been watching the series "Life", mainly because I liked the lead guy so much in Band of Brothers. I thought he was great as Capt. Winters. I'm enjoying Life immensely as well, even though the two characters could not be more different.

Just one bugbear so far. In episode three, they are dealing with a bloke who has bumped his head during a car crash. He has a big lump of bandaid on the right side of his head. During one scene, it shifts to the left side of his head, and then back again to the right in the next scene.

Continuity person needs to be shot.

Not bus-ting a gut

What is it with public transport in this city? Most afternoons, I wander down to George St and it takes only a few minutes for a bus to turn up and take me home. Except for yesterday, when it took 40 minutes before a bus turned up with my number on it. Dozens of other buses turned up, but none were going my way. I started to suspect that maybe the drivers on my route had gone on strike, since at least 4 or 5 buses should have arrived within that time frame. I get mighty suspicious when I see lots of other buses picking people up, but none with a particular number.

I can't wait to get back on my bike. None of this waiting around rubbish. You get on and you go. Yes, there can be holdups all the way to Darling Harbour thanks to stupid pedestrians and bad traffic, but at least you don't have to wait to be picked up. And if it is a slow trip home, that is entirely my fault.

I can see why a favourite past time for rioters is burning buses. I feel like doing it every week or so.

Splitters

At last - some teachers are breaking away from the loonie unions and forming new associations. Next thing we know, it will be civil war.

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

"You mean apart from roads etc etc etc"

Organic food dying out

Our local supermarket is a fairly upmarket affair. For as long as I have been shopping there, it's had a big section set aside for the greenies and the organic fruit-head types.

Well, all that is no more. I went past that section tonight and found that it was now where all the crappy machine produced TipTop bread is kept. Rack upon rack of mass-produced, sponge-like muck now occupies the space that used to hold organic yoghurt, organic olive oil and all that stuff.

Good riddance. I never saw anyone in there buying it, so supermarket management obviously wised up finally, looked at the till-rolls, did the sums and ripped all that rubbish out. The only stuff left is some bio-dynamic yoghurt that is fast approaching the use-by date and some funny looking breakfast cereal. I wonder if it will still be there after the weekend.

As you'd expect, the removal and disposal of a few tonnes of bio-dynamic seaweed juice has elicited not even a peep of protest from the local wogs. As long as you don't mess with the pasta aisle, I doubt they give a damn what is on the shelves.

I do hope that I run into a confused greenie one night, wandering around the shop in a dazed state whilst searching for organic custard.

What smells worse?

We had to change a stinky nappy in the car last night. Since there was a shortage of rubbish bins in the area, and we are not the sort to dump bags of stinky nappies in the gutter, we took it home.

By the time we got home, the car stunk.

I had to transport different crap in a bag tonight. Junior has a throat infection, and for some odd reason, all he can get down is KFC drumsticks. That meant I had to drive to KFC to bring home a doggie bag of grease.

By the time I got home, the car stunk.

Which one do you think was worse?

The KFC - by a long shot.

Bus seats

I must pay more attention to whom I sit next to when I get on the bus in the morning. This morning, in a lack of sleep-induced haze, I stupidly sat down next to a woman who was wider than she was tall. I think I was confounded by the fact that I could barely see the top of her head over the seat in front, so I ambled down the aisle thinking that she was short, and thus rather small.

How wrong I was. A beach ball would be positively elongated in comparison to this turnip of a woman. By the time I had landed on the seat, and realised my error (she was also dressed in black from head to foot, so her width was disguised by it being slyly blended into the seat in the gloominess of a morning bus), it was too late to stand up and go somewhere else.

By the time we got into town, my left hip was aching from being jammed into the arm rest on that side. From now on, I will take clear note of how much seat space is available before just plonking myself down next to anyone.

I was lucky to avoid a similar fate last night. An enormously obese woman waddled onto the bus behind me when I was heading home. Although she was in front of me in the queue, she was so slow at moving forward that I was able to duck around her before she wheezingly lifted first one leg and then the other onto the bus. The bus was one of those modern things that sinks to one side to reduce the step height for limited mobility people, but even so, when she got on, the bus threatened to tip over even further. I think that sinking suspension was fitted so that 90 year old grannies with two plastic hips would have an easier time getting on, or parents pushing a pram - but it appears that the main beneficiary are those that eat four hamburgers for lunch.

On a side note, we've had a contractor in here recently who requires a super-sized chair. He stunned us on day one by informing us that he had to go out to have his "second breakfast". No wonder his bum required a second seat.

So I managed to get around the tub of lard on the bus and found a seat, and she stood up next to the driver and complained all the way to Central about how another bus had gone past and left her standing there. I saw the bus go by, and knew that it would not stop as it was bursting at the seams. Sometimes, even if a bus is full, the driver will stop and allow one small to medium sized person on. At times like that, I normally wave someone like a small asian lady on in my place if I am at the front of the line. It's just common sense. If it would be hard to fit me on board, it would be impossible to fit Mrs Four-Hamburgers on board.

As it was, she stood in the aisle next to the ticket machine, and everytime the bus stopped to pick someone up, these poor buggers would have to get on board and then squeeze past her in order to get a seat. Why she didn't just move to the back of the bus is beyond me. The look on the faces of the people getting on board when they saw her for the first time were priceless. The horror at realising that they would have to inch past this whale of a woman, and touch her as they did so, evinced looks of utter horror - especially as it was a hot day and she was sweating heavily. I was never so glad as to have made my move to get on the bus before her.

After a couple of stops, she gave up on earbashing the driver about the faults of another driver and took the seat behind me. She had run into someone on the bus that she knew, and so they sat together and she then started going on and on and on about her mother. Her mother sounded completely batty, which probably explains the completely fat and batty daughter. This woman had one of those accents where she pronounced 'time' as 'toime', which mad me wish for an iPod for the first time in my life. Normally, I can tune these nutters out, but the proximity of this one to my ears, and the awfulness of her family traumas removed my ability to cease to hear her. I was stuck with her all the way to Glebe. I am not sure which was worse - having my lungs collapsed by fatso the fat arsed frump this morning, or having my brain melted by super fat arse last night. Half the trip was taken up with her complaining about her sore knee, which was undoubtedly hurt by the fact that it had to support 200 kilos of bacon double cheeseburgers with a large fries.

I am going to write to Sydney Buses and suggest that they fit narrower doors to their buses in future. If someone can't fit through the doors, then the exercise of walking to work will do them some good.

Mad fags

It's been a while since I have had the desire to light up a gasper. Probably five years or more. I used to enjoy a few fags when out for a beer on a Friday night, but the desire to have a social fag went around the same time I stopped going out for a social beer on Friday night. Now, when I have a beer, I am thankful that all the filthy smokers are stuck outside on the footpath and I can enjoy my beer without getting second hand smoke up my nose. I never thought about the consequences of banning smoking in pubs, but now that the ban is in force, I love the idea of getting out of bed on Saturday morning and not stinking like an ashtray.

All that aside, the smoking bans can be taken a bit far. I found that quitting smoking was dead easy. I just stopped buying cigarettes one day and stopped smoking a few days later when my last packet ran out. That was it. No cravings. No shakes. No nothing. Although for the next few years, I felt the need to bum a smoke or two when consuming too much beer, but even that went away eventually. I don't get this whole "quiting is hard" business. Maybe it is for some people. Maybe I just didn't smoke enough. I find the idea of going with coffee for a day to be much more distressing than going without nicotine.

From The spectator:

A recent inquest recorded the death of Genevieve Butler, a woman in her twenties who threw herself from the fourth-floor internal walkway of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I have followed this terrible case because Genevieve’s parents are friends of ours. It raises many issues about the mishandling of mental health care too large to be discussed in a note here, but one smaller point should be made. When Genevieve, who was in a psychotic state, jumped, she was being taken outside to smoke, in accordance with the no-smoking policy which is now law. A great many mental patients like to smoke. If they are not allowed to do so, they become much more anxious and desperate. If they go outside to smoke, they will generally need supervision. This involves greater risk and is a waste of nursing time which could be avoided if they could smoke in designated indoor areas. There are other recent cases, I gather — e.g. a fall from a hospital window in west London and a stabbing of a nurse in Essex — where the smoking ban created extreme and avoidable strain. Smoking harms the body, we know, but can we be so absolutist when it comes to the troubles of the mind?

Landscaping - the hard way

Saw this in the SMH yesterday:

The program will largely be based on the work of a private firm, Boston Consulting Group, which has been contracted by RailCorp to conduct the survey and recommend changes to the network's industrial landscape and work practices.

I love how they describe dealing with bloody-minded unionists the "industrial landscape". Having noted the generally sullen and downcast mien of many rail staff, and the generally obstructionist and Ludditish positions that union officials take to every announcement, the industrial landscape conjures up images of Mordor. I've never thought of it that way before, but most of those bitter and twisted station staff, and the mad maintenance staff, can now be thought of as orcs.

Is Vince Graham the magician on a white horse? I doubt it. He reminds me more of a Hobbit.

The only way they are going to change the place is to sack the bottom 10% of the workforce every year for at least 10 years. They simply need to evaluate everyone every 12 months, and cast off those that have the least chance of getting with the program. You could probably cut 30-40% in the first year, but recruiting replacements for that many could be difficult, so I'd stick with 10%.

Moths

I walked past an office building this morning that has one of those huge glass atrium things out the front. Yes, they are lovely at letting in light and keeping out the rain, but it appears that they are also hugely attractive to moths. Every glass panel had moths attached to the inside face, and there were clouds of moths circling around above the lift area.

A colleague told me that he went past the same building yesterday and people were shoo-ing moths away from their heads as they went in and out the doors. Apparently it looked like a bat attack scene out of a horror movie.

We've got lots of things to thank architects for. This is another one.

Batman Begins

I am so over Batman. I enjoyed Michael Keaton as Batman (I must have been the only person on the planet that still says that), and hated every other Batman movie after that. They just became an excuse for more loud and expensive shit.

I didn't bother with Batman Begins, mainly because it looked like another 2 hour festival of wham-bam and whatever.

Then I saw it on TV the other night. Most of it anyway - missed the first 10 minutes or so. It didn't matter. I watched 10 minutes of it and was hooked. I really liked the theme of exploring how he became Batman, and the process he went through to get there (kind of like what happened in Spiderman). The cast was also bloody marvelous, although it was a pity that -- arrgh, can't remember his name.... the cop... didn't do his bad cop thing with the pills. There simply wasn't enough of him in this movie. Oldman - that's his name. He should have lost the moustache and glasses and had a much bigger part.

In the end, I think it was Michael Caine that did it for me. He's done some terrible stuff in recent years, but he was marvelous as the butler. I know Michael did any old movie for a while, so long as it paid the tax bills, so I will always forgive him turning up in bucket loads of stinking movies, but this was not a stinker by a long shot.

Until about half an hour from the end. The bloody producers or director or script writers just couldn't resist infecting the movie with some of the crap that destroyed all the other movies. A big action sequence. A big yawn if you ask me. I wish directors would realise that in order for an action sequence to be gripping, it has to have meaning. There has to be tension and suspense. Just blowing things up or dropping trains off tracks does not equate with tension.

I'd love to see the first 3/4 of it again, but if I do, I'll switch off when they turn on the microwave thingy.

New filters

I need to setup some sort of news filter for the next six weeks. I know how I am going to vote, and a 6 week campaign will make no difference whatsover to how I cast my ballot. I'd just like to vote now, then forget about the whole thing until it's over.

It would be great if you were given a hat or T-shirt after voting early that said, "I've voted". That way, people would not bother you with horrible political conversations and pollsters would avoid you like the plague.

Not that I ever watch the 6 o'clock news, but the election campaign is providing an even better excuse to never, ever watch it. I'll stick to reading UK magazines and looking at US and UK web sites and just avoid all local news. I wonder if I can avoid it so much, I almost forget to vote.

Here's hoping.

Legs

Oh boy, a morning of sore legs awaited me today. I didn't ride far yesterday - only about 30km max. I left too late for a really long ride, the day was hot and so I cut it short. However, when you put together a good ride on Saturday with lots of hills that I have not done in ages, and then another reasonable ride on Sunday, it bashed me around a bit.

The last time I headed for the airport, the ride lasted about 3 hours and I got as far as The Fishos, which is also known as the Brighton-le-Sands fishing club. I think the red arrow shows the spot where I did a U-turn on that trip. If you have any idea of what Sydney looks like, the big yellow patch on the right is the airport. Which airport? The big airport. The one that everyone flies into.



I had no idea where I was of course. I had just followed a couple of other blokes on bikes for the last 10km and simply hoped that they had some idea of where they were going. I know now that if I had kept on going to the water and then turned left, I could have gone through the middle of the airport and then down to La Perouse. But I'd probably need to set aside four hours to do that and get home, and I only really had 1.5 hours on Sunday, so I didn't go far at all.

I used to scoff at Chook when he'd tell me about going for an 80 or 100km ride on the weekend, and I would wonder how he could find the time to get away from the kids and wife to do that. Well, I now know that the only way really is to get up at about 5am and get home about the time they are waking up after a big sleep in. Trying to go in the middle of the day can be a write off, especially as the weather is getting warmer and the tanning effects of the sun are getting worse. I have had two good weekends on the road, out in the sun, and I am about 10 shades darker than I was last month.

Ouch

I spotted this hulk not far from home. It's in an industrial estate, and has been sitting there for at least a week.



When I first saw it, only one window was smashed. I presume this car is a good example of the "broken windows" theory of crime. If you leave something around with one broken window and don't fix it, some idiot will come along and smash the rest of the windows.



Even the roof has been caved in, probably by someone jumping up and down on it.



The hilarious thing is that the council is responsible for towing these things away. It is about 100m from a council depot, and no one has noticed it yet (or they have noticed, and couldn't be buggered doing anything about it).

Bridge ride part II

More mechanics and other business things underneath the approaches to the harbour bridge.



Riding into town from North Sydney is an interesting affair as you take a different route going into town from the one coming back. When going into town, you have to go down a rather steep and nasty bit of footpath beside a church, and someone has thoughtfully put this warning sign up. The 'go-slow' idea is a good one here. About the only time I would ever advise someone on two wheels to use the brakes.



The problem is not the steepness of the path, although it is quite steep and the runout at the bottom is disastrous - it's the metal covers that some idiot has put over some inspection holes of some sort. I've ridden over these metal covers in the wet, and they are absolute death traps. Sheets of black ice would be less slipery. You have to crawl down the hill and then release the brakes when crossing them - otherwise the wheels go into an uncontrollable slide and they can go out from under you sideways. Nasty, nasty, nasty.



Here's an office block being converted to apartments. Kind of looks like Beirut at this point. Close up, it looks even worse. They've just hacked the fascia off the concrete and it really looks like a few bombs have done the work. Next time you see a photo of a 'blown up' building in Iraq or Lebanon, just think of this building in North Sydney. The damage might be a result of the building being revamped by developers. Things are not what they seem.



Not the best thing to happen on Saturday afternoon - car breaks down and leaves you sitting on the grass, phoning people and trying to arrange a lift. That's the girl sitting on her bum on the far right of the photo.



This bowling club has the best view if you ask me. I think the club is now defunct though. The grass looked brown and uncut from above. I guess the club has gone belly up and developers are now fighting with the council about what they can replace it with. Knowing what our councils are like, the fight will still be going on when I retire. This site will be a pristine bit of reclaimed bush in 10 years time.



A good view of the bridge. The nice thing about looking at it from here is that there is no prison type fence topped with barbed wire on the right. In some parts of the path, the wire stretches out from both sides and doesn't leave much of a gap overhead. It's like riding through a concentration camp.



Another nice view, with the ANZAC bridge way off in the distance.



I'm not sure what is being demolished here, but I always think its a hoot when you see a bulldozer or excavator of some sort on the roof of a building.



The building with the glass roof is a swimming pool. I used to swim here a lot when I lived on the north shore. It's a great pool. Bugger of a thing to get to, but worth it to have a swim underneath the harbour bridge. I swam there in the rain a few times (the big pool is in the open air) and it was quite spooky looking up at the bridge as I turned at the end of each lap, as the bridge was wreathed in mist. Unlike today. The only mist was the evaporating sweat from my back.



Off in the distance, there is a mass of newly delivered white cars glinting in the sun on the docks under the ANZAC bridge. Whenever I get into riding and read about what a growing activity it is, I ride over that bridge and look down and see another car carrier pulled up at the wharf dropping off another huge load of shiny new cars. People love their cars a lot. I like mine a lot, but it is good to get out of it on a regular basis and work off some of the junk food that has been consumed whilst driving it. I wonder if car seats are getting larger to accomodate larger bums?



I've been ripped off by this sandwich bar. Bad food and high prices.



This beamer has been sitting on the side of this street for months in this bashed up condition. It had a car cover over it, but it got ripped off in a recent storm. The rego runs out in Feb 2008. I wonder if they will manage to get it repaired by then?

To the Harbour Bridge and beyond

I did a nice little ride today - about 37km from here to North Sydney-Crows Nest and back again. That took me over two landmarks - the ANZAC Bridge, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I took some photos along the way of things that most people would never see.

It was a good day for a ride - the mercury didn't even make it to 20 degrees, but it was just warm enough to be comfy and not raise a sweat. It was odd at times - the air would be warm, but I'd feel cold, and at other times, the air would be cold and I'd feel hot. It wasn't one of those days where it is freezingly cold or blisteringly hot - it was a funny inbetween day.

Here we are, next to the approaches to the bridge on the city side. Just up ahead is the entrance to the bike path on the western side of the bridge. This spot is a devil to get to - it's badly marked, hard to find and I have spoken to many cyclists who have tried to find this spot and given up in frustration. My advice is always, "Stop, look for another cyclists who looks like they know where they are going and follow them".

Works for me.



This spot is just opposite the unused tollbooths at the city end of the Bridge. I can never understand why the RTA doesn't just rip these out. I imagine many motorists zoom past this spot every day, never realising that just to their left, there is the start of a great bike ride.



This is the view back the way I came. Just behind the two pedestrians is where you ride up onto this section of road. The hard part is getting to the point where you can ride up to where I am now. You have to buggerise around at a bad intersection, ride up a section of footpath and then up a steep ramp. Unless you have someone to follow, most people would never find it.



The other attraction here is the Sydney Observatory, which is on Observatory Hill funnily enough.



This is the bike path over the bridge. The RTA recently put up the security fence on the right, which narrowed the path slightly. I worried when they were putting it up that they would narrow the path so much, it would create a risk of head on collisions between cyclists.



On the right, there is a sliding gate in the fence that's there in case a train needs to be evacuated. There's also security cameras at regular intervals. The only way to get off the tracks and over the fence is via a ladder, and there are also ladders stored behind the fence at regular intervals. Someone has been thinking this through.



The view from the bridge is always marvelous. Off in the distance is the ANZAC bridge, which is where I was about half an hour before taking this photo. It's cool that you can see each bridge from the other.



Nice day to be on the harbour.



A jetboat happened to pass under the bridge as I was standing there. I used to live in an apartment up the back of this bay somewhere - not close enough to be on the water, but high enough to be able to see the bridge and part of the city. Not the greatest apartment, but a great view.



The RTA has put up a bit of signage at both ends of the cycle path to tell pedestrians to keep to their side of the bridge, but I used to see some strolling idiot in the old days about 1 crossing in 5.



Here's where the cycle path finishes at the northern end of the bridge. That's Milsons Point station in front. I've stood there on the platform and watched cyclists come down the path and then disappear down the steps. It looks kind of odd. Not that most people notice it - they're off in their own little world and take no notice of cyclists zipping around.



Here's the steps/ramp down the side of the bridge. It's not that well sign posted either, so the only way to find it really if you've never ridden through here before is to follow another cyclist.



Here's the view from the end of the cycle path. The park here was revamped a few years ago - this used to be a complete pit.


More signage to tell people to stay off the cycle path. It's amazing how few people read these things.



I reckon chances are no one has ever been fined $500 for doing this. Never.



A parking spot under the bridge. One of the better places to park when visiting Milsons Point.



This is something I'd never want to do. I've seen a few cyclists do it, but I reckon if I tried it, I'd zoom off the end and crash into something heavy, like a car.



Apart from parking, there's also some businesses that lurk beneath the bridge. I used to get my car serviced down here. Hundreds of thousands drive over the top of this spot each day, and I reckon 1% or less know what's underneath.